


It's Time

by Aliena (ChokolatteJedi)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Children, Early Work, Gen, Harm to Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-11-15
Updated: 2003-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/Aliena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's time</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Time

_It’s almost time. It’s been almost 5 months since Billie left. And now winter is here and soon the first snow of the season will fall. And Billie won’t be here for it. The first snow of the year always happens at night. Always. Billie would sneak into my room and shake me awake. “Ali, Ali, its time.” I’d jump out of bed and she’d help me dress up in my warm winter jacket and then we’d sneak out the back door. Somehow Billie always knew when it was the right time. Every year we’d get there just in time for the first snowflakes. We’d catch them on our tongues, trying to keep any of them from hitting the ground, until there were too many, even if we ran._

 _We’d stop and plop down onto the lawn. I loved looking up into the falling snow. I imagined I was in the snow-globe paperweight on Daddy’s desk. The one with the North Pole Village in it that had been on his desk ever since I could remember. I would sit there while Daddy worked, turning the snow-globe over and over again, watching the confetti fly around and around. I wished I could visit that village and see the snow swirling all around me like it would those nights. Eventually Billie would get up, pull me to my feet, and together we’d sneak back into our rooms._

 

But one afternoon, the summer Billie was supposed to turn twelve, she was taking me and Jesse (he’s three) to the public library down the street. We took our cocker spaniel, Carolina, with us on her leash. When we got there, Billie let me take Jesse in all by myself while she tied up Carolina. I took Jesse to the kiddy section and read to him from Where the Wild Things Are. I waited for Billie to come back, because usually we’d take turns reading to him, but she didn’t come. I gave Jesse a picture book to look at and went to the front desk.

“Hi Ali, here with your parents?”

“Hi Mrs. Elwin. No, Billie brought just Jesse and me. But I can’t find Billie. Have you seen her today?”

“Well, no. But I just got back to the desk, so she could have come in without my seeing. Did she come in with you?”

“No. She was tying up Carolina’s leash to the bike racks.”

“Well perhaps she is still out there, would you like me to go look?”

“Oh yes please, I need to go back with Jesse.” I walked back to the kiddy room and found Jesse still looking at the picture book.

“Sissy?” He asked.

“She’ll be back soon,” I reassured him quickly, hoping that Mrs. Elwin would find my sister. Three books later, Mrs. Elwin came into the kiddy book section, but Billie wasn’t with her.

“Ali, where’s your mom today?” She asked solemnly.

“She’s volunteering at the hum- hum… the place with the puppies and kittens.”

“The Humane Shelter?”

“Yeah. The one in Oakridge, not the one here.”

“Thank you Ali. Now you stay here and watch Jesse like a grown up girl.”

Mrs. Elwin left and I read Goodnight Moon to Jesse. When I finished, he was asleep in my lap. I found a copy of Beauty and the Beast and read to myself while I waited for Mrs. Elwin to return. I was almost done with Beauty and the Beast when someone walked into the room. It wasn’t Mrs. Elwin though. “Momma!” I picked Jesse up and ran to her. She folded us into a huge hug. She was warm and smelled like animals and her perfume. “Did you find Billie, Momma?”

“She may be waiting for us at home.” Momma sounded funny, “Let’s go.”

We waved goodbye to Mrs. Elwin and walked the two blocks back home. I wondered why we walked back instead of driving, ‘cause Momma always drove to work. Momma said maybe Billie would be back home, but Momma must have already been back, cause her car was in the driveway at home. Next to it was Daddy’s truck.

Forgetting my confusion about the car, I flung myself through the door. “Daddy! You’re home early” Daddy caught me up in his arms and squeezed me tight as Momma walked in carrying Jesse. He grabbed her and hugged us all together. Finally Jesse started asking for food and Momma took us into the kitchen. While we were eating, the doorbell rang. Momma went to answer it and after a few minutes Daddy came into the kitchen.

“Ali, honey, come here please.” I slid off the chair and followed him into the den. There was a policeman on the couch with Momma and another one was sitting at Daddy’s desk. “Ali, this is Officer Stanley. He would like to talk to you.” Daddy squeezed my hand and then went to stand behind Momma.

“Please sit down Ali,” the officer at the desk said. “James, please take them and go talk to the other child.” The other policeman nodded and waved at my parents. Momma didn’t move. “It’s better if you are with the younger one, Ma’am,” he said. Momma looked from him to me and then left the den.

“Its ok Ali, just tell the truth Hon,” Daddy said and then he left too.

I looked back at Daddy’s desk. There was the snow-globe with the Winter village inside. Without thinking, I reached forward and picked it up, shaking it once and letting the snow confetti swirl around.

“Ali?” I looked up. “Can I talk to you for a few minutes?” I nodded. “Did you go to the library today?”

“Yes.”

“Who went with you?”

“Billie and Jesse and Carolina.”

“Carolina?” He looked at a little notebook sitting on the desk. “Ah, yes, your dog, I believe.”

No. I shook my head. “Carolina is Billie’s dog, not mine. Tahoe is mine.”

“Tahoe?”

“My cat. Billie has a dog, I have a cat, and Mommy has fish. Jesse is too young.” I don’t know why I needed to explain about Carolina and Tahoe and the fishy twins, but I felt like everything had to be right for Billie to come back. If she thought that I wanted Carolina as my dog, maybe she would be too mad to come home.

He made a note in his book. “I see. So Billie took you and Jesse and the dog to the Library today?” He frowned, “All by yourselves?”

I didn’t like how he asked that. He made it sound like Billie was wrong to take us to the library, even though we had Carolina with us like we promised. “Billie always takes us to the Library if Mommy is at work. And we _always_ have Carolina with us.”

He wrote some more notes, then looked back up at me. “So today your mom was at the Humane Shelter and Billie decided to take you to the library. Is that correct?” I nodded. “Did anything unusual happen on your way to the library?”

“Unusual?” The confetti had stopped flying around so I shook the snow-globe again. There was one tree that had no leaves, and usually they all had leaves. Billie said maybe that tree had died last winter, so it didn’t have leaves this year. And Jesse said a new word, “street.” And a squirrel ran past us right before we got there but Carolina didn’t chase it, she just growled at the tree behind us that it had run away from. Were those unusual?

“Did anything strange or bad happen?”

Oh, strange unusual. “Well when we tried to tie Carolina to the bike rack, she kept barking. Billie stayed outside to calm her down and told me to take Jesse inside on my own. She trusted me ‘cause I just turned seven.” Billie told me on my birthday that I was almost a grown-up now ‘cause I could reach the top toy shelf in our play room without standing on a stool.

“Ahh.” He started writing quickly. “And then what happened Ali?”

“Billie didn’t come, so I went to ask Mrs. Elwin if she had seen Billie.” I wondered what else he had written in his little book before I talked to him. Maybe he wrote down everything that happened in his day, like a book. Billie had told me once about a book that is like a diary. This girl writes down what she does all day and then makes it into a book. She was a spy, which Billie said was a little like a police officer. Maybe this officer was like that girl, Harriet.

“And who is this Mrs. Elwin?”

She told me once that her name meant a friend of the Elves, and that she had become a librarian so she could be around books on elves all the time. “She’s the librarian and she’s really nice. She watches us walk home when we leave.” “She looked for Billie and Jesse fell asleep and I read to myself. Then Momma came in and brought us home and we had grilled cheese.” I finished the last bit in a rush ‘cause I didn’t want to answer any more questions. I didn’t want to talk to policemen or see Momma and Daddy sad. I just wanted to sit in the kitchen with Billie and Jesse and finish my snack.

I suppose he guessed my thoughts, because he closed his little pad. “Thank you very much Ali, you may go now.”

I jumped down off the chair and ran out the door, back into the kitchen. Jesse was gone, but all the food was still there. I started to climb up onto the chair and felt something in my hand. It was Daddy’s snow-globe. I walked back to the office to put it back on the desk. I was about to push the door open when I heard voices.

“From your daughter’s account, her sister is definitely missing. At this point, with no witnesses, and given the time lapse, it is very unlikely that we’ll find her today.” That was the officer who had spoken to me.

I quickly backed away from the door and ran back into the kitchen. I’d just picked up my sandwich when Momma came back into the kitchen, carrying Jesse.

“Ali, did the-” Her words were cut off by a frantic barking from outside.

“Carolina!” I jumped down and raced to the front door. The office opened as I ran past and Daddy stuck his head out.

“What?”

“Carolina!” I yelled as I shot past him. I jerked the door open and ran outside, Momma, Daddy, and the officers right behind me. “Carolina!” I whistled. I felt Daddy’s strong arms grab me as Carolina ran around the corner. She jumped into my arms and started licking my face.

The grownups were all trying to talk to me, but I could only think of one thing, _If Carolina’s here, then Billie…_ “BILLIE!” I yelled, “Billie, come out!” Daddy still held me tightly, but the others spread out, running to the end of our driveway and out into the street.

“BILLIE!”

“Billie!”

“Billie! Billie, it’s Momma. You’re not in trouble, just please come out!”

The other policeman, the one who had talked with Jesse and Momma, started talking into the little box-thing on his shoulder. It made a bunch of funny noises, sort of like talking. Daddy set my down in the doorway. “Ali, Honey, take Carolina, go into the kitchen and watch Jesse. Don’t come out unless Momma or I tell you to.”

I nodded and went into the kitchen. I put Carolina down and filled her water bowl, then climbed into my chair. Jesse was still eating his grilled cheese. I sat there, sipping my apple juice and staring at Daddy’s snow globe, sitting on the table.

“‘Lina back. Sissy home?”

“Not yet Jesse, Sissy isn’t home yet.” I said, shaking the snow globe.

 

 _And now its winter and the snow will fall any day now, but Billie won’t be here to wake me up. I was getting a glass of water from the sink and heard the television in the living room._

“…If you live in the Oakridge or High Bay area, you should dig out your heavy winter parkas, because a big snow-storm is heading your way. It will hit either tonight or tomorrow morning and what a way to welcome in the winter season, with four inches…”

I closed my door and snuggled down into my sheets. It would snow tonight, and Billie wouldn’t be here to wake me up for it. We would miss it. I cried until I fell asleep. In my dream, Billie was shaking me awake, “Ali, it’s time.” I woke up expectantly, but Billie wasn’t standing over me tonight. I was about to go back to sleep when I heard the words again, “Ali, it’s time.” I knew I wasn’t dreaming this time. I squirmed into my parka and ran to my door. No one was awake, so I slipped into Jesse’s room.

“Jesse, wake up. It’s time.”


End file.
